As Leader of a city council facing cuts of over £25 million in the coming financial year, and a budget gap of over £100 million by 2019, I was interested to see your offer of help from the No 10 Policy Unit to your local council in dealing with similar, if smaller cuts, affecting your constituency.

As the use of the civil service for partisan advantage is against the ministerial code, I look forward to that advice being made available to other councils, including mine, in the coming weeks so that I can avoid decisions on service closures, job losses and withdrawal of funding that I will have little choice but to make.

Alternatively, I would welcome a change of policy from your Government, the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government, on the complete withdrawal of revenue support grant funding during the coming three years, a policy that will lead to severe hardship amongst the people I represent and the decimation of local services in the city I serve.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Councillor Warren Morgan Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council Labour and Co-Operative Member for East Brighton